Mikaela Martinez Dettinger - Tender Carnivore and Readings on the Holocaust

 In my Theology and the Holocaust class we recently discussed what allowed citizens, Nazis, and other bystanders to allow the genocidal events of the Holocaust to occur. The conclusion presented to us included that the ability to deny direct responsibility or accountability because they were given orders allowed Nazi Party members to carry out violence against the Jews. Because their direction came from an authority figure, it allowed their consciousnesses to deflect the blame for the crimes they committed onto others. One example of how the Nazis protected their own consciousnesses is seen in the position given to Jewish prisoners titled "Sonderkommando". The Sonderkommandos were the prisoners given the task of putting the bodies of their killed peers into the crematoriums. The events of the Holocaust are incomparable to any tragedy. Part of the reason why such violence was able to be carried out was because the Nazis were careful to dehumanize the Jews as much as possible. They stripped them, shaved their heads, gave them numbers instead of names, and took away all of their rights. The Jews were methodically murdered in death camps outside of the views of the general public. 

In reading Tender Carnivore and Sacred Game I realize that the Nazis applied the same concepts of rejecting responsibility and connection as we do currently to the sources of our food. In Tender Carnivore Shepard explains how the sacredness of hunting and game is built by forging a connection with the creature that is being killed and with the land. Our slaughterhouses do the opposite. They allow us to deny responsibility for what we take. Similarly, the Nazis purposefully refused to allow themselves the possibility of connecting with their prey, and it allowed them to commit atrocious crimes and one of the largest genocides in human history. There can be no comparison made between the Holocaust and our current slaughterhouses. What can be understood from this is the danger of the mindset we use to justify and allow actions that may be considered wrong. On an infinitely different way, the slaughterhouses today allow us to continue to use and abuse nature while ignoring the consequences and refusing to place accountability on ourselves. This mindset on any scale is dangerous and exclusive because it refuses to count all living beings as valuable. This concept is seen in the Holocaust on a grotesque scale, but it points out the gravity of the mindset we are allowing ourselves to adopt.